Restaurant Branding And Marketing Strateg

Your restaurant’s brand is composed of the thoughts, feelings and ideas that come to the minds of people when they think about your restaurant. A strong brand differentiates your restaurant in a noisy and competitive marketplace.

Your brand is developed through your marketing message, associating your restaurant with the emotions and ideas that are relevant to your target audience.

Restaurant branding is the process of consciously choosing a consistent voice for your business activities. It’s actively expressing your brand values to associate them with your business in the mind of your target market. There are many components of your brand. Once developed, it should be expressed at every point of contact made with your customers.

Components of brand:

Logos and signage

Interior decor or theme

Menus and printed materials

Employee dress code or uniform

Policies and procedures

Service standards

Promotional style

Marketing style

Each of these elements should exist in harmony, reinforcing one another. They should be coordinated and consistent, to make a clear impression on your customers.

If you handed your guests a survey listing colors, moods, emotions and ideas and asked “Does this represent our restaurant?” they should be able to mark “yes” or “no” confidently.

Surveys like this are used by marketing consultants to test the strength of your branding.

Develop Your Authentic Brand Identity

Find your voice

Another way to look at your restaurant brand is as its “personality”. A restaurant isn’t a person but to your target guest it should feel like one.

To accomplish this you need to develop a basis for your brand that is authentic and unique to your restaurant’s strengths. By the time you get to the point where you’re developing your restaurant branding strategy you should already have a clear profile for your target guest.

To identify and establish your restaurant’s target, follow the guide Restaurant Target Marketing which is also part of Rezku’s free library for restaurant owners.

Establish your values

Now, think of your target guest and answer these questions. After each section distill it into a short statement.

This is your Brand Promise

What do you offet to your target customer?

What problem do they come to you to solve?

What are you committed to providing every day?

These are your Core Values

What code of conduct helps you fulfill your USP?

What motivation drives your team and keeps everyone on track?

Why do you care?

This is your Unique Selling Position

How do you fulfill your commitment to the customer?

What skills, tools and technologies enable you to fulfill your commitment?

How are they better or different than your competition?

This is your Mission Statement

Take the answers to these questions to create a single unified statement of purpose.

Example mission statement: We are committed to providing our guests with convenience, speedy service and a family friendly atmosphere (Brand Promise). We accomplish this through proper training, amenities for kids and tableside ordering (USP) because we value our customers’ time, and getting everything right the first time (Core Values).

Brainstorm this process with your co-owners, managers and select staff, who “get” the vision. By making it a group activity it will help the members of your team become personally invested and committed to the process.

Marketing Your Restaurant Brand

Now that you understand the core philosophy that drives your restaurant your marketing is a focused effort. The goal of your marketing is to explain your mission statement to your customers in creative ways.

Likewise, your restaurant interior design should reinforce your brand values. Choose lighting, colors, and music that appeal to your target guests. Create an atmosphere they will enjoy returning to again and again.

Marketing Strategy For Your Restaurant Brand

To market effectively to your target audience you need to know where their ears and eyeballs are. This could be TV, radio or online—go where they are.

When you create ads and social media posts, keep them in line with your restaurant branding, and integrate styles and elements that appeal to your target customers. Use your marketing as means to educate target guests about your core values. Provide interesting content and useful information to your target customers.

The components of your brand are all the elements that come to be associated in the minds of your customers when they think of your restaurant. To develop your brand think about your target guests’ needs and how you’ll fulfill a commitment to them. Use these ideas to create a concise mission statement.

Use your mission statement to form your marketing message. Communicate where your target guests will see your advertising. Use a style that is authentic, matching that of your target guests, to appeal to them.

This guide to restaurant branding and marketing is part of a free library provided by Rezku. We help restaurant entrepreneurs like you achieve success and reduce frustrations.

We provide affordable, reliable solutions for point of sale, front of house management and much more. With a free one-to-one consultation with a Rezku expert you’ll get all the answers to your questions about how the latest technology can help you achieve more.

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